Cheneys talk Clintons

5/18/14 9:28 AM EDT

Dick Cheney says Hillary Clinton “bears responsibility” for the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and will be “held accountable” for it in a potential 2016 presidential race.

The former vice president and his wife, Lynne Cheney, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” in their first joint interview since leaving the Bush administration. The two weighed in on various stories surrounding another major political couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton,who was then secretary of state, “clearly bears responsibility for whatever the State Department did or didn’t do with respect to that crisis,” Dick Cheney said of the Benghazi attacks.

“She will be held accountable during the course of the campaign,” he added.

Cheney also briefly discussed Karl Rove’s comments on Hillary Clinton’s health. The Republican strategist, who served with Cheney in former President George W. Bush’s administration, made waves when The New York Post reported that he had suggested Clinton might have brain damage from a blood clot she suffered in 2012. Rove has since denied using that phrase.

“Any presidential candidate or vice presidential candidate is going to have to answer questions about their health,” Cheney said, while adding that he didn’t want to “prejudge” Clinton’s own health.

Lynne Cheney, who has recently made several media appearances to promote her biography on James Madison, also said she was sticking by her comments that the Clintons were perhaps behind the recent Monica Lewinsky Vanity Fair profile.

“I was really paying the Clintons a large compliment. I was saying how clever they are politically,” she said in the interview aired Sunday. “It seems to be if you had something that might come up during the campaign that might be damaging, it was very smart to get it out of the way early. So, that’s my case, Chris, and I’m staying with it.”

Earlier this month, Lynne Cheney told Fox News that she believed the Clintons may have wanted to “get that story out of the way” this year, with a potential presidential election still two years away.